Friday, May 8, 2009

Rites of Passage

A couple was just in looking for a present for their son's 21st birthday. At one point the woman picked up Russian Criminal Tattoos III, and offered it up as a cool suggestion. "That," the man asked, "no way. Give him that and he'll end up getting one of them, and then he'll run into the wrong person and get himself killed."

"What? By who," his wife asked.

"I don't know. By a Russian, by some Russian criminal who knows what it says and doesn't like it. No way!"

"Come on" she responded, and I was expecting her to weigh the probability of their son running into a Russian criminal who not only recognized the tattoo, but found it offensive enough to kill someone over. Instead, she took a unique stance. "It's a pretty random way to go. Pretty cool, not something stupid like dying in a car crash."

"Yeah, well, let him do it on his own time," responds the man, and decides on the new Chuck Palahniuk book, Pygmy.

When they were checking out, the woman wanted to get a 2009 organizer, and had to choose between red and blue. "Red," she decided. "He needs to be more masculine." I guess that's a good compromise, building up his manhood with a red date book rather than a Russian criminal's tattoo.